The Paranormal Database

Red Water

Location: Papa Westray (Orkney) - St Tredwell's Loch
Type: Other
Date / Time: Prior to royal event
Further Comments: The waters of the loch are said to turn red just prior to news that will greatly affect the royal family.

Lost Princess

Location: Pembroke (Dyfed) - Carew Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This wandering shade, thought to be Princess Nest, known as the Helen of Wales, travels around the castle grounds as if looking for something. Another legend says that the great hall is haunted by a former owner and his pet ape, both of whom were found dead and on fire.

Messy Bed

Location: Pencaitland (Lothian) - Penkaet (or Pencaet, or Pencait) Castle, also known as Fountainhall House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1950s
Further Comments: The ghost of Charles I is blamed for disrupting the bedding in the room that contains his death mask. John Cockburn, who committed murder here, can be heard dragging the body along various parts of the building. Finally, the castle is also haunted by a beggar, falsely accused of using witchcraft against another former owner.

Nell Gwyn is said to haunt many a location.

Nell

Location: Pewsey (Wiltshire) - The Phoenix Inn (original building no longer stands)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The king's mistress would stay at the inn when the King travelled and resided in a nearby manor house. Her spirit remained until the inn was demolished.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Location: Quarr Hill (Isle of Wight) - Quarr Abbey
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The wife of Henry II is reported to haunt these ruins, appearing as if she regretted plotting against her husband. However, there is no evidence that Eleanor of Aquitaine visited the area in her lifetime.

Boadicea

Location: Quidenham (Norfolk) - Low mound, around 300 metres from the church, known as Viking's Mound
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Still present?
Further Comments: This site has been named as another contender for the final resting place of Queen Boudicca.

Elizabeth Hesketh

Location: Rufford (Lancashire) - Rufford Old Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: The lady now manifests herself as a grey shade, waiting for her husband to return from a war with Scotland. She may have last been seen by a curator as he sat playing the piano. A shade resembling Queen Elizabeth has also been reported, though her link with the hall is unknown. Ghostly music is also reputed to occasionally be heard.

Hooded Figure

Location: Salcey Forest (Northamptonshire) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Summer 2023
Further Comments: Traditionally, the hooded figure that darts between the trees was murdered on the king's orders for being a lover of Nell Gwynn. A couple walking through the woods were now about to say hello to a hooded figure on the path ahead which disappeared - the witnesses had mistaken the figure as another walker, albeit one in unusual clothing.

Nellie & Charlie

Location: Salcey Forest (Northamptonshire) - Salcey Lawn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The figures of Nell Gwynn and King Charles II have been seen on the property, though never together.

White Lady

Location: Salford (Greater Manchester) - Ordsall Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: Some people believe that this phantom figure is Margaret Radclyffe, Queen Elizabeth's favourite Maid of Honour. She died of a broken heart in 1559 shortly after the death of her brother.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Salle (Norfolk) - Salle Church
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The former queen sometimes returns to this church, where local legend says she was laid to rest after her body was clandestinely removed from the Tower of London.

Queen Maude

Location: Santon (Lincolnshire) - Queen Maude Hole
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: At midnight, every night
Further Comments: The queen is said to walk around the depression in the land that bears her name. Some others name her Queen Mab or Empress Maude.

Queen Mary, and Girls Laughter

Location: Sawston (Cambridgeshire) - Sawston Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Queen Mary rebuilt the Hall after it was burnt down by troops searching for the monarch. Seen in the room in which she slept, the Queen's ghost appears to always smile, and wears the same dress which appears in her portrait located elsewhere in the building. An explanation for the laughter which sometimes echoes through the Hall has never been discovered, although another royal, Lady Jane Grey, is still seen in her former bedroom and walking down corridors - it is said this was the only place that she felt happy.

Footsteps

Location: Scone (Perth and Kinross) - Scone Palace, South Passage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghost here is said to constantly walk up and down the passage, always at the same constant speed. One witness reported feeling something hit her arm three times while passing along the corridor.

Lambeth Palace and the River Thames, London.

Anne Boleyn

Location: SE1 (Greater London) - Lambeth Palace, & River Thames near the building
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Carried in a Thames barge crewed by faded grey figures, the shade of Boleyn is taken to the Tower of London where she met her maker. The palace itself sometimes echoes with Anne's voice, pleading and crying for her life to be saved.

Bodiless Hand

Location: SE10 (Greater London) - Greenwich Palace (currently Royal Naval property), & the Queen's House - Tulip Staircase
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1966
Further Comments: The phantom hand photographed on the Tulip Staircase is one of the most frequent images to crop up in books about ghosts and hauntings, though recently the effect has been duplicated with a long exposure time. The other ghost in the former palace resembles Queen Elizabeth, complete with period costume and red hair. The Queen Anne block is haunted by Admiral Byng, executed for treason in the 1700s.

Monk

Location: Shaftesbury (Dorset) - Shaftesbury Abbey
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Monk unknown, man in 1971
Further Comments: When this man died, he was the only one to know the true location of the Abbey's hidden treasure. He now returns to ensure it remains hidden. It is worth noting that the ghost 'walks' on his knees - one assumes this is because of a change in ground level. Several people claimed to have seen a phantom man running around the ruins at night; some say that this was the ghost of King Edward.

Mary Queen of Scots

Location: Sheffield (South Yorkshire) - Manor Lodge (aka Manor Castle)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2015
Further Comments: Folklore says that Mary, wearing a long black dress, appears in the Turret House and glides along corridors and passes through walls. In 2015, a visitor to the site watched a glowing white figure of a woman wearing a long dress run towards and vanish behind a building.

Mary with her Jailor

Location: Sheffield (South Yorkshire) - Turret House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Mary Queen of Scots was held here for many years, and on occasion her ghost is seen looking out from a window. Her male jailor is sometimes seen standing guard on the stairwell.

Isabella of Valois

Location: Sonning (Berkshire) - Site of Bishop's Palace (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Summer evenings (last seen late eighteenth/early nineteen century?)
Further Comments: Wife of Richard II, Queen Isabella' drifts around the field where the palace once stood. As the phantom grey woman moves, ghostly music emerges from the ground. George III's organist lived nearby and may have been the last person to witness the phantom.

Waxwork of King Charles the First.

King Charles I

Location: Southwell (Nottinghamshire) - Saracen's Head Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: King Charles I is said to have used this building as a hideout whilst on the run, and his phantom now appears in the King Charles Suite. Another man, sporting a powdered wig, also haunts the building, as does a woman in eighteenth century dress.

Mary Queen of Scots.

Mary

Location: Southwick (Northamptonshire) - Stone Chapel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: The Queen of Scots has put in at least one appearance here, praying at the altar.

King Harold's Army

Location: Stamford Bridge (North Yorkshire) - Area over battlefield
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1812
Further Comments: The re-enactment of Harold's 1066 battle has been observed in the skies over the field where much blood was shed.

Princess Cicely

Location: Standen (Isle of Wight) - Great East Standen Lodge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Never seen, but her presence is announced at night when her invisible form is felt sitting on the end of a bed.

Old postcard of Stirling Castle.

Man in Highland Dress

Location: Stirling (Stirling) - Stirling Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: A photograph taken in the 1970s shows what could be a spectral figure walking along the cobbled path. Reports of phantom footsteps echoing down corridors have also been reported at the castle, and a green lady has been observed. Not to be forgotten, some also say a woman in a pink silken dress stalks the area outside the fort, and she is named as Mary Queen of Scots.